GEO discussion tends to focus on broader, less location-specific queries, best software for X, comparison content, general expertise, which can make it seem largely irrelevant to a local plumber, dentist or restaurant whose customers are searching with clear geographic intent. The honest answer is more nuanced: it matters less than it does for a purely digital B2B business, but it's not irrelevant, and dismissing it entirely misses a real, if genuinely smaller, opportunity worth understanding properly.
Where local search still dominates, for now
For "near me" and clearly local-intent searches, and this is worth stating plainly before anything else, traditional local SEO, Google Business Profile optimisation, local citations, reviews, still drives the overwhelming majority of relevant traffic, and that's unlikely to change dramatically in the near term given how map-based, location-aware search interfaces currently work. Local SEO fundamentals remain the higher-priority investment for most local businesses by a clear margin.
Where AI search genuinely does come into play locally
Broader, less location-anchored questions, what to look for when choosing a contractor, how to know if a service provider is reputable, still get asked in AI tools even by people who will ultimately choose a local provider, and being cited as a helpful, trustworthy source for that kind of broader question builds the general credibility that supports the final local decision, even without directly driving the search itself.
Reviews and genuine reputation matter to both systems simultaneously and equally
Genuine, detailed reviews left on Google and relevant industry platforms serve both traditional local search and, increasingly, AI-generated summaries of local business reputation, since these platforms increasingly synthesise review sentiment directly into conversational answers about local providers. This is one area where local SEO effort and GEO effort overlap almost completely rather than competing for separate attention.
A proportionate approach for a local business's limited resources
Local SEO fundamentals should absorb the large majority of any local business's digital marketing time and budget, since that's genuinely still where the real volume sits. A modest, secondary effort, one that fits comfortably alongside everything else on a busy owner's plate, ensuring consistent, accurate business information across the web, encouraging genuine reviews, and answering a handful of the broader questions a potential customer might ask before narrowing to local options, captures the smaller but genuinely real GEO opportunity without diverting meaningful resources away from what still matters most day to day.
What not to do
Investing heavily in GEO-specific tactics, structured data beyond the basics, extensive comparison content, at the direct expense of local SEO fundamentals is very likely the wrong allocation of a local business's limited time and budget for the foreseeable future. This is exactly the kind of proportionate judgement call that should inform any GEO strategy discussion for a local business, rather than applying the same emphasis a purely digital B2B business would use.
A closing thought on proportion
The businesses that get the most value from thinking about GEO at a local level are the ones that treat it as a small, sensible addition to an already-solid local SEO foundation, not as a replacement for the fundamentals that still drive the overwhelming majority of local customer discovery today, and that framing keeps the effort proportionate rather than a distraction from what still matters most.